The present invention generally relates to agricultural balers.
More particularly, it relates to an agricultural baler which includes substantially a pickup element, a conveyor which transports a harvested product stream picked up from a field, and a transferring device which conveys the collected product stream in direction toward a bailing chamber.
The balers of the above mentioned general type are known in the art. In the known balers the transferring device is composed of several profiled disks which are fixedly mounted on a cylinder, the baler has sensors which are formed as pivotable sensing brackets located between the pressing chamber for detecting the harvested product stream over the width, an evaluating device connected with the sensors, and adjusting means connected with the evaluating device. Such a known baler is disclosed for example in the German patent document DE 38 11 694 C1. In this known baler the pivotable sensing bracket which are supported at one end and distributed over the width of the pickup element are connected with measuring sensors. In correspondence with the height of the harvested product stream picked up by the pickup device, the sensing brackets are deviated more or less. This deviation is registered by the measuring sensors mounted on the sensing brackets and supplied to the evaluating device as electric values. The evaluating device can be connected with adjusting means for lateral displacement of the conveyor which centrally accumulates the harvested product stream for uniform loading of the baler. This adjusting means can be formed as a cylinder for influencing the steering of the baler. Furthermore, this known baler provides for the possibility for orienting the evaluating device for accurate detection of the picked up harvested product quantity. Generally the operation of such balers is satisfactory.
However, the arrangement of the deviated detecting brackets is structurally difficult and very cost-consuming and they present obstacle for driving as well. Also, a sensing of the harvested product layer which is partially very loose is possible only to a limited extent.